So I’m back home from my Bali journey. It’s been amazing three and a half months, I’ve seen and experienced a lot and damn.. living in tropics is just awesome. And here I am sitting under the blanket, looking outside the window at the tree outside my house loosing the last of its yellow leafs and listening to the rain evenly knocking against the window sill. Well, this is October in Poland. It has the bright sides though, we can eat all this comfort food without any guilt. After all you have to survive the autumn somehow.

As much as I love exploring foreign exotic cuisines and learning new flavours, I always miss those simple things like whole grain bread or baked potatoes. I do miss cooking and baking when I’m on the way. I’m a vegetarian, but I cook vegan most of the time.

I would like to share with you my favourite recipes. Recipes inspired by traveling. Recipes inspired by traditional polish (but not only) cuisine. Finally recipes inspired by some awesome vegan and vegetarian cooks I admire.

Since the first thing I craved when I came back to Europe were potatoes, and the autumn weather calls for the simple but filling oven baked gratins, I decided to make a Shepherd’s Pie. My inspiration was the recipe of famous Polish vegan blogger known as Jadlonomia. I hope you will like my version of this popular dish.

STUFFING

400g / 14 oz green or brown lentils (uncooked)

2 carrots

2 onions

2-3 garlic cloves

200g / 7 oz champignons

400g / 14 oz canned tomatoes diced

3-4 tsp. tomato paste

2 tbsp. rice oil (grape oil or other tasteless oil)

3 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. dried or fresh thyme

1 tsp. rosemary (preferably fresh)

½ tsp. dried marjoram

Himalayan salt

black pepper

POTATO TOPPING

6 potatoes

1/3 cup unsweetened soy milk (or other not sweet vegetable milk)

2-3 tbsp. rice oil (grape oil or other tasteless oil)

1 tsp. rosemary (preferably fresh)

pinch of nutmeg

Himalayan salt

black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Peel potatoes, carrots and champignons. Cut potatoes in half. Place them in a bowl, add water and salt, boil until soft (do not overcook!).

2. Rinse the lentils until the water is clear. Cook them until soft but still granular.

3. While waiting for the potatoes and lentils to cook finely chop the onions, garlic, champignons and cut the carrots into pieces of around 1cm.

4. Pour oil into the larger pan or pot and heat it before adding the onions. Fry onions until translucent and brownish, add some salt, then add garlic and carrots. Stir and fry for 5 more minutes. After that add chopped champignons and stir well. They will start to release water, so you need to fry them until it evaporates before proceeding to the next step.

5. At this point you can add cooked and drained lentils, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, soy sauce and all the herbs and spies. Mix well, so that all ingredients and spices are evenly distributed, try and adjust the seasoning. Be careful not to eat whole stuffing now 🙂

6. Drain the potatoes, add oil, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg and while they are still warm mash them until very smooth and creamy. You can use the potato masher, but if you do not have it the hand blender should do. Chop fresh rosemary finely and mix into potato mash. Adjust seasoning.

7. Preheat the oven to 200°C / 390F. Place the lentils inside the ovenproof dish and even the surface. Lay potato mash on the filling, even carefully not to smudge the surface with the filling. You can make some pattern on potatoes using fork or spoon.

8. Bake the shepherd’s pie for 20 minutes using lower heating and then additional 10 minutes using upper and lower heating in order to get nice browned surface.

TOMATO SAUCE WITH CARAMELIZED ONION

400g / 14 oz canned tomatoes diced

1 medium onion

1 tbsp rice oil (grape oil or other tasteless oil)

1 tsp cane sugar

salt

oregano (or other favourite herbs)

1. Sauté finely chopped onion with salt until translucent. Add cane sugar and stir for a while until the sugar dissolves and onion is evenly covered with it and becomes brownish.

2. Add tomatoes and herbs, stir and cook for about 8-10 minutes.

3. At this point you can blend the sauce with hand blender if you want it smooth, or leave it as it is with small pieces of onion and tomato. If I use it for pizza (it is great as a pizza sauce) I leave the pieces and cook it for 15 minutes more so it becomes really thick.